The Tigers have a day off today. Jeremy Bonderman and Dontrelle Willis will pitch in a minor league camp game. And Miguel Cabrera, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen, back from the World Baseball Classic, may show up at Marchant Stadium for extra batting practice.
        Meanwhile, many of their teammates will spend at least part of the day on the golf course. It provides an ideal diversion as the daily pressures of preparing for the pending regular season mount.
        Justin Verlander and Brandon Inge, both bombers, are arguably the two best golfers on the team. Andy Van Slyke is, without a doubt, the best golfer on the coaching staff, although Gene Lamont is not bad.
        A lot of the guys, including rookie pitchers Rick Porcello and Ryan Perry, just love to play.
        Porcello, who is low-keyed and composed, says whenever he makes a poor shot he “delicately,” to use his word, puts the offending club back in his bag.
        However, according to Porcello, the more excitable Perry is an incorrigible club-thrower.
        And what does manager Jim Leyland, who is capable of making birdie or double bogey on every hole,  do when he makes a bad shot?
        “I pull a ‘Tony La Russa’ and I say, ‘That one doesn’t count,’ ” Leyland admits.
        Asked what his strength as a golfer is, Leyland readily confesses, “I don’t have one.”
        The Tigers manager remembers the time he was playing in a celebrity tournament with the legendary Arnold Palmer.
        “I made a bad shot and I got a little mad,” Leyland recalls.   
        “Arnold took at me and he said, ‘You don’t play good enough to get mad.’ ”